From Dishwasher to Ruler of the World

Shitou, a menial worker, has washed dishes and swept floors at Drunken Immortal Tavern for seventeen years. No one in the capital remembers the tavern's handyman, just as no one notices a pebble by the slop bucket. Until one day, the son of the Vice Minister of Revenue harasses a widow in an alley. Shitou crouches nearby, holding a pebble, as if counting something. Then he flicks it. No sound of breaking air. The rain is too heavy, covering it. The minister's son freezes, a small hole embedded in his temple. The Six Doors investigate and find six grooves on the pebble; the Assassin's Guild, thirty killers wiped out overnight; the Chief of the Six Doors trembles, holding a seventeen-year-old pen. But Shitou still washes dishes and sweeps floors. He doesn't know that when the innkeeper picked him up from a mass grave twenty years ago, the pen in his hand was stained with dragon blood. Nor does he know that when he finally "wakes up," he won't be washing dishes or sweeping floors—but sweeping the world.